Try as many balls as you can and the ones that work the best for you is what you should use, regardless of price. What works for someone else might not necessarily work for and you and vice-versa. I personally stay away from balls that are under 20 bucks for a dozen. It's not because I overspend on balls, it's because every discount ball I have tried doesn't work for me.

The OLD top flites from 10+ years ago were bonafied rocks - sounded & felt like hitting a golf ball sized marble. I haven't played a late model budget ball that is even close to that. All the modern cheapo balls are pretty decent by comparison (I expect the guys that are used to playing soft covered spinny tour balls may disagree) - I have played most of the cheaper balls & I don't think you'll find any rocks on the market today... they're all decent enough today

The OLD top flites from 10+ years ago were bonafied rocks - sounded & felt like hitting a golf ball sized marble. I haven't played a late model budget ball that is even close to that. All the modern cheapo balls are pretty decent by comparison (I expect the guys that are used to playing soft covered spinny tour balls may disagree) - I have played most of the cheaper balls & I don't think you'll find any rocks on the market today... they're all decent enough today

I play Srixon Z Star XVs but to be honest I really doubt in a blind test I could pick them from most other current model balls.

I did putt one of those 10 year old top (rock) flites a while back and calling it a rock doesn't do it justice. I thought I might have damaged the face of my putter.

To a very good golfer who is fine tuning their ball flight or green side game which ball they play might make a difference, but to the rest of us I doubt it makes a shot difference per round.

Tried the Noodle Long and Soft and didn't think they were bad. For the price I'd prefer the Gamer V2, pre-hit premium balls, or spend a little more and get brand new Penta TP5's for $24

There are ways to get good balls for "junk ball" prices. First example above. TM comes out with the Lethal, and voila, their previously $45/dozen balls are now selling for the junk ball price of $24 (I only found them for $29, but still, a bargain)

In the last year, I've bought 2 dozen Penta TP3 for $25 each, a dozen Callaway Hex Black (or Chrome, I forget) for $27, the previously mentioned Tp5's for $29, and previous to all of that, I bought several dozen ProV1x's through lostgolfballs.com for somewhere in the mid 20's per dozen. (They were AAAAA, the highest grade balls, and were basically brand new)

Me too - no better or worse than any other ball in that class. If guys make bold statements like that, the least they could do is BACK IT UP - sheesh, the guy is a beginner looking for a decent ball - there is NOTHING wrong with Noodles.